Private and Confidential: Not for publication, broadcast or use on social media.

To all Editors,

There have been a number of cases over the last 2 days where editors have attempted to establish a link between a person’s identity and his membership of the security services. Any such linkage is likely to cause a significant increase in the threat to a person’s life and to that of his family, major disruption to current security operations and a significant cost in attempting to relocate households.

May I take this opportunity to remind editors that DA Notice 05 advises,

inter alia, that the following should not be published:

‘….. (b) the identities, whereabouts and tasks of people who are or have been employed by these services or engaged on such work, including details of their families and home addresses, and any other information, including photographs, which could assist terrorist or other hostile organizations to identify a target…..’

No responsible editor would want to name serving spies active in the field surely? It’s not like the authorities are looking for an excuse to go round smashing up journalists’ laptops. Oh…